Page:The Proletarian Revolution in Russia - Lenin, Trotsky and Chicherin - ed. Louis C. Fraina (1918).djvu/53

 These are the only possible Socialist and revolutionary tactics to pursue.

The third group is represented by Cheidse and his friends, the Mensheviki generally. They are drifting to and fro. In refusing to join the second Provisional Government (the government of Guchkov-Milyukov) if the latter declared the war an imperialistic war, Cheidse was in harmony with the revolutionary proletarian policy. But the fact that Cheidse participated in the first Provisional Government (the Duma Committee), his demand that a sufficient number of representatives of the Russian workers participate in this government (which would mean that Internationalists would assume responsibility for a government waging an imperialistic war), and his further demand, together with Skobeleff, that this imperialistic government initiate peace negotiations (instead of showing the workers that the bourgeoisie is tied hand and foot to the interests of finance, capital and incapable of renouncing Imperialism),—then Cheidse and his friends pursue the worst bourgeois policy against the interests of the Revolution.

The differences between the Bolsheviki and the Social-Revolutionists, as well as the Mensheviki, manifest themselves in three important issues,—issues that the Council of Workers and Soldiers must solve in the right way before it can carry on its revolutionary task. These issues are: the land problem, the organization of the state, and the problem of the war.

All the land must belong to the people. All the land of the large owners must be confiscated by the peasants, without compensation. But the vital tactical difference is whether the peasants should immediately and locally take possession of the land without paying any more rent to the owners, or whether they should wait for the convening of the Constituent Assembly?

Our party is of the opinion that the peasants should take immediate possession of the land. They should do this as much as possible in an organized way, without causing damage to the property, and should use all efforts to increase the production of grain and wheat, as the people suffer immensely from hunger. A temporary division of land for the coming harvest is only possible through the local Councils of Peasants' Delegates. In order that the rich peasants, who are also capitalists of a sort, shall be prevented from injuring and deceiving the day-laborers on the farms and the poorest peasant, it is necessary that these should consult, unite and co-operate apart from the others by forming their own Councils of Farm Laborers' Delegates.